Disney animator sees summers in Mobile as inspiration

Fond recollections of childhood summers helped fuel the creation of the popular Disney Channel animated series "Phineas and Ferb."

"The show is sort of based on my summers growing up in Mobile," said executive producer Dan Povenmire, 44, a graduate of Shaw High School who left Mobile for California, where he has pursued a career as a filmmaker, animator and television producer.

Povenmire, who created the Disney Channel show with collaborator and co-executive producer Jeff "Swampy" Marsh, recalled some of those warm, fun 1970s summers during a recent telephone interview.

"My mom was always trying to get us to do creative things rather than watch TV," Povenmire said. "She would always have some sort of creative project. We are always building a fort or doing any number of bizarre activities."

On "Phineas and Ferb," stepbrothers Phineas and Ferb spend their summer vacation days finding inventive, fun ways to occupy them selves. In one episode, they construct a roller coaster from such unlikely materials as Popsicle sticks and indoor plumbing parts.

"I used to spend my summer making little movies," said Povenmire, whose mind was on a Hollywood career from an early age. "My mom let me drape black material all the way across one end of our living room to use as a space field. I would hang little models of spaceships for these little movies I made with a Super 8 camera."

With a couple of years of study as a University of Southern California film student under his belt but no degree, Povenmire found himself working by day as an animator on Fox's "The Simpsons." He wrote movie scripts at night.

He took the animation job to pay the rent, he said, but he ended up loving the work.

Then what some might consider a potentially big break came. Having written the screenplay for a low-budget feature film that was eventually released as "Psychocop 2," he was offered the chance to helm the project as a film director.

But Povenmire went in another direction.

"I was told I could direct the movie but I would have to quit 'The Simpsons,'" he said. "I made a decision that I was enjoying 'The Simpsons' more and that it would be appropriate for me to do more of that kind of work. That was an important decision for me."

Soon, another gutsy decision would see him take a chance by leaving "The Simpsons" a popular TV program that's still on the air after what is an unprecedented 19 seasons for a prime-time animated series.

"I could have just stayed at 'The Simpsons' ad infinitum," he said. "I have friends there who were there when I was and are still working on the show. But animation is such that at the end of production they lay off all the artists and then at the end of post-production they bring all the artists back. I was looking at a two- or three-month downtime."

So what might have been a brief stint on the Nickelodeon animated series "Rocko's Modern Life" in his down time wound up being a longer run for the animation artist. He enjoyed working on that show even more that working on "The Simpsons" because the job allowed him more creative input.

He grew up watching and loving the old Warner Bros. Looney Tunes shorts, with the Bugs Bunny cartoons being his favorite. The Nickelodeon series employed similar methodology in the way the animated stories were created.

"When Bugs Bunny was being made, the artists were also involved in the writing of the shorts," Povenmire explained. "That's how you ended up with a lot or visual humor. So on 'Rocko's Modern Life' I got the job because I had done a comic strip at USC. They hired me because I could write and draw."

He worked on "Rocko's" alongside his friend Marsh, who was his collaborator when the pair created "Phineas and Ferb" for Disney Channel.

Povenmire would go on to work on other animated series, including Nickelodeon's "Spongebob Squarepants," before he and Marsh persuaded Disney to let them do "Phineas and Ferb" their way with the animators writing as well as drawing the cartoons.

"It has been a big leap of faith for the Disney executives to let us do it this way," he said. "Now they are looking at doing other shows this way. It's really fun, when you get to come up with the gags as well as draw them. I think that's the most fun an animator can have."

In addition to network TV executives and young viewers and parents around the country, Povenmire counts his oldest daughter as being among the show's most ardent fans. Isabella, who is 2cm HALF, especially enjoys that her father named one of the characters for her.

"She loves it, but she has no idea that I do it, other than if she asks me to draw Phineas and Ferb I will do it," Povenmire said. "I get the feeling that until she is 4 years old she will think that every daddy draws cartoons."

Povenmire's wife, Clarissa, gave birth to their second daughter last month. "It's me and a house full of girls," the proud father said.

Time will tell whether young Melissa will share a name with one of her daddy's cartoon creations.

The animator said he doesn't get back to Mobile as often as he once did. Family members have long since departed for other parts of the country, although he occasionally returns to his hometown to visit friends or to attend a Shaw High School reunion.

Meanwhile, south Alabama summers from his youth live on in the television adventures of "Phineas and Ferb."